incarnation

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

- John 1:14


i love this poem by, surprise surprise, Marie Howe, which captures a bit of what it must have meant for God to be dwelling among us, the Word made flesh. Not only to be constrained by time and space, not only to have to put up with all the indignities and inconveniences of bodily life, but also, to be living with us - clamouring, grasping, contentious, self-seeking people that we are.

'The people Jesus loved' - surely Howe included herself among the number? And surely, this poem is more symbol than story, though of course, it is story as well?



The Star Market

The people Jesus loved were shopping at The Star Market yesterday.
An old lead-coloured man standing next to me at the checkout
breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.

Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and
hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them:
shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if The Star Market

had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in
with the rest of them: sour milk, bad meat:
looking for cereal and spring water.

Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car
in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have
been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept

out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands
and knees begging for mercy.

If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought, I will be healed.
Could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?


(from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, by Marie Howe)
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